


Truss

by cognomen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bondage, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, dubcon, pretentious psychobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 01:44:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2091147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world has a dream like quality, or perhaps it is reality that has ceased to feel real. Will feels the last year of his life twisting back on itself, a serpent. An oroboros.</p>
<p>"Did you know, for nine days the god Odin hung from the world tree, suspended upside down in order to gain the wisdom to retrieve the sacred runes from the well of Wyrd?"</p>
<p>Will is not upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GhostPatches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostPatches/gifts).



He wakes slowly, like coming up from the dark depths below rushing water. Above, something has changed, some circumstance has become new, but while he swims up from the sea, he can't identify what.

His eyes surrender darkness to light and he realizes, slowly, that they have been open.

Will Graham blinks, counts to three with that sensation of cold, dark water still over his head. When he opens his eyes again, he allows that he has reached the bottom of the well. There is hard constriction against the bridge of his nose, too much for his glasses.

He reaches out with his tongue to wet his lips, feeling constraints along the length of his body. His breath is hot, close.

His tongue touches plastic, catches with a rasp against a small hole.

For a time, a panic constricts him the same as the bonds. His body is quick to take stock of itself with that familiar mask. His head does not tilt, his shoulders cannot lift, though he can twist his hips some. His hands are numb across his chest, folded in a mockery of an embrace. 

His fingers move against rough, stiff cotton, like sails are made from. His nails catch on the weave, but find no other purchase. 

He cannot see his ankles and they do not move save to shift against each other when he tries.

The world has a dream like quality, or perhaps it is reality that has ceased to feel real. Will feels the last year of his life twisting back on itself, a serpent. An oroboros.

"Did you know, for nine days the god Odin hung from the world tree, suspended upside down in order to gain the wisdom to retrieve the sacred runes from the well of Wyrd?"

Will is not upside down.

The voice emerges smooth, soft, familiar, from behind his back. Hannibal. 

Despite the predicament, Will feels his chest ease. The months since he has left the ward of the Psychiatric hospital have not been wholly a dream.

Reality is subjective and dubious at times, but it has not totally failed him.

"From this and the inverted crucification of St. Peter, we draw the hanged man-" 

The lecture is beyond Will's patience. 

"If I'm a martyr, Dr. Lecter, you put me there," Will snaps, turning his head the fraction he can against the strap tight around his forehead.

Hannibal clucks his tongue once, standing just out of sight and close behind Will.

"There is no martyrdom in the card you have drawn, Will," Hannibal answer. His voice is even. Soothing. Assured reassurance. "Wisdom. Enlightenment, at the expense of effort."

Hannibal's voice at his ear. Low, rough.

"Are you willing to make the effort?"

Will hisses between his teeth. 

"Is there another option?"

Hannibal does not answer - there is always another option, Will supposes. He can shut his mind off and learn nothing, drift with the current of the stream until something dark and dead brushes against him in the water.

Hannibal's fingers slide against his neck, and he cannot tip his chin away while they take the measure of his pulse.

Behind him, Hannibal will be measuring the rhythm of him against the finely tuned action of one of his expensive watches - though not the most expensive. He is heedless of the incongruity of pitting Will's cheap and faulty mechanisms against something wrought finely and with care. 

"Did you drug me, doctor?" Will asks, twisting the last word until it sounds like it tastes in his mouth.

"You consented," Hannibal informs him.

Will does not remember the immediate events prior to this. He does not trust himself enough to have conviction when he denies Hannibal's assertion.

"Why would I do that, I wonder?"

His words sound dead against the plastic, muffled, muzzled. His breath tastes stale, the air is hot, and he cannot toss his head to clear the mask.

"The pursuit of knowledge," he answers himself, and Hannibal caresses the bare skin of his his neck, above the leather he swallows against. He can't see or tell if it is separate from the jacket holding his arms.

Wisdom. Enlightenment.

At the cost of effort. 

Hannibal steps back and a shudder wracks Will against all his restraints. He is upright, held fully erect on a sort of - it is half gurney, half hand truck, he supposes.

There is the sound of wood moving over carpet. Will makes the best of his peripheral vision. He supposes this must be where Hannibal sleeps.

_Bedroom_ does not seem appropriate.

Lair, perhaps.

He closes his eyes because it is the only control he has, and the shifting sounds transform to the measured thud of hooves on carpet.

_Black hide. Black horns. Eyes blazing red. The stag raises its head and its mouth gulps air, swallows down the scent of Will Graham somewhere between fear and excitement._

At least one beast in this room knows what it really wants.

"Will."

_The points of the antlers are perfectly symmetrical, cutting the light that comes through the windows like the sharpest blade. The chin lifts, a ripple shakes the feathers over it's shoulders, a raven stirring to flight._

"Will."

_The stag grunts, an explosive sound of air from its lungs._ Will opens his eyes.

In front of him, Hannibal is adjusting a mirror, a full body affair in a dark wood frame. The glass is greenish, beveled. Will can see himself held immobile. The straight jacket is unbleached white cotton, the mask clear over his mouth except where his breath steams it.

The strap over his legs - chest - head - stark black. His skin looks pink and pressured on his forehead. He leans back against the immobilizer and the pressure eases some. 

The band on his throat is separate, plain. A silver ring hangs trembling from the front, catching the light. A personal, aesthetic touch. Typical. 

He lets his eyes slide to Hannibal only after his handiwork, after his eyes take in the stark and shining signature against his neck.

"Alright," Will says. "You've put me here before. What can I learn now that you've done it again."

Hannibal is in shirt sleeves and a sweetening smile, rolling them to his elbows with slow, deliberate turns of his fingers.

"How to transform," Hannibal says. "How to escape."

The distance between them is a few steps. Hannibal moves forward - Will can see the clean lines of his back in front of his own cocooned form in the mirror, and it's there he looks instead of into Hannibal's red eyes.

His own are blue. Depthless and still. Very serene.

Hannibal fills his vision then, tilting his head so it rests against the strap over Will's forehead. Will can feel his own lips peeling back from his teeth, and isn't sure the mask is the only thing that keeps him from biting.

He touches Will gently, along every inch of skin he's left free for sensation. His fingers slide behind Will's ears, against the hinge of his jaw, running a long stubble and setting it prickly and contrary to the softness of his fingertips. With index and middle fingers counterpoint to thumb, he traces the shape of Will's trachea, until Will swallows instinctively like a dog with a pill.

Hannibal smiles with his mouth nearly against the plastic barrier.

Then he sinks down, and Will hisses a breath in. He cannot follow Hannibal's descent with his regard. In the mirror, he can see Hannibal's knees fold into shadowed hollows at the backs. He settles on his heels, feet tucked neatly beneath him. They are clad darkly in socks.

Hannibal traces his fingers over the intimate straps of his straight jacket. Will cannot see the entirety of the motion, just the shifting of Hannibal's shoulders. He can feel the strong fingers sliding over the v-shaped strapping that hugs the join of his legs to his groin. They must attach to the buckles he can feel at the small of his back.

It doesn't matter. Hannibal does not need to undo them.

His strong hands caress the fabric, and Will feels every pass of attentive fingers over the front of his pants. Coaxing the flesh beneath to fill. Will cannot stop his body from answering the touch. He is not sure what he would expect as a reward for answering gentle persistence with stubbornness. 

Hannibal touches him until he hardens to the limits offered by the tight fabric. Until a noise of frustration clatters out of his mouth to impact the mask.

Will realizes long minutes have passed, though time feels like a distant concept, far less real than the sensation of the side of Hannibal's thumbnail catching each woven line in the denim alongside his trapped dick. He is supposed to learn something from this. Something that is not helpless surrender.

He closes his eyes against the image of Hannibal's flexing shoulders in the mirror, of his own lidded eyes and pink cheeks, pink neck, pink open mouth.

In the last seconds, the glass seems to ripple, and behind his eyelids it pours out of the dark wood frame. Dripping first, silver drops like mercury - each tiny surface a reflection of the world. 

Hannibal claims the zipper on Will's pants, tooth by tooth. He can feel each give way with a tiny tremor and then the water is pouring out of the mirror, rushing. The sensation becomes nothing more than the pull of the current around him.

The water splashes golden sunlight in the fall afternoon. Yellow light, yellow leaves, a world drowning slowly in gold. Will wades to his his middle. The water is only gold for a minute - it steals a gasp from him when it touches him between the legs, finding some gap in his armor to soak through.

It warms quickly enough, welcoming him deep. The sensation is steadying, the effort of resisting the tide bringing up sweat at his lower back and beneath his arms. 

He runs the fly line long in his fingers, and then flicks it far out into the current, letting the motion of the water do most of the work. There is a calmness as the water pulls the flu, and he can feel the line rolling off the reel as the white and red bobber rushes away from him.

Tension winds in him slowly, anticipation looping up tight. It works in revers to letting his line out, knotting up within him. 

Hannibal takes him deep, the world wavers.

It is the collar and restraints that do it, and when he loses his concentration, the breath goes from him in a ragged gasp. 

Hannibal is still on his knees, Will's cock deep in his mouth, something that dizzies Will, intoxicates him on the heady combination of danger and wanting. 

The collar feels tighter with his mouth open, and Will cannot move a muscle save to twist himself vaguely and hope Hannibal has too much pity, too much built up to draw this out. 

He cannot look down, can't see the concentration on Hannibal's face, but he knows that it is there. The man takes as much pleasure in doing things to the full extent, in being good at them. Perhaps the look would be mingled with Hannibal's own enjoyment, and victory. 

Will pulls in a gasp, the air inside the mask feels steaming, too well used. He tries not to choke on it, unable to shake his head to clear it to something cooler. Something that does not make him feel that he is drowning on dry land. 

"Did I consent to this too?" he asks, aloud, perhaps more to himself.

Hannibal, of course, hears.

He draws back, curls his fingers in the straps over Will's chest and in the mirror his shoulders tensing under the thin silk back of his vest look like those of a springing cat.

Hannibal draws himself up along Will's immobile form, to look him in the eyes. To gauge him.

He has never needed consent from Will, he has always had it. Will had granted him his right to prove himself interesting against the foil of Will Graham when he had swung open the door to his hotel and eaten what he was given.

Hannibal's eyes are dark to the light. His hand stays on the straps over Will's chest, fingers curled against Will's sternum. Will can feel his heat trying to beat into the touch, the only part of him unrestrained to do so.

The air is cold on his wet cock, before Hannibal closes his other hand on it.

The fingers are rough but sure, the palm smooth against the head of his cock. He does not relent until Will's breath is rough, until he feels like he can't possibly be getting enough fresh air through the mask. It dizzies him until he feels almost as if he were falling into it, chest heaving against his crossed arms and the tight leather bands holding him.

Release gathers somewhere in front of his tailbone, sticks and holds stubbornly - Will has never been able to cum standing up. When it takes him, he can feel his knees buckling, his weight against the straps and the will of gravity again. 

Hannibal's forehead rests gently against his own when Will finds north again. His eyes are impossible to avoid, so Will closes his own. 

Hannibal chuckles, Will can tate the breath that comes out of him.

"Don't feel bad, Will," Hannibal purrs, lifting his hand - cleaned somewhere, mercifully - into Will's hair affectionately. "Even for Odin it took nine days for wisdom."

"We who are mortal must endure more to learn, though we endeavor no less than the gods." 

He strokes Will's sweaty hair, gentle, and Will sags into it, too tired to resist the touch.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hannibal-ACCA, and a good friend. I hope they enjoy it! Some references to The Hanged Man, and Norse mythology. 
> 
> Honestly I think The Hanged Man is a good anagram for Will Graham, anyway.


End file.
